Why do Empire continue to hype Iron Man 2 up, and hail Iron Man as one of the most enjoyable superhero movies, when they only gave it 3 stars? The review does not reflect Empire's enthusiasm for the series so far

Well a three-star review is a GOOD film for a start, plus all the problems with Iron Man were mainly down to it being the set-up "origin" story, like with X-Men 1; and X2 turned out to be one of the greatest superhero films ever. So I imagine IM2 will be an absolute stonker.

Just because a film is an origin story, does not mean it should be viewed as an inferior movie in the franchise. Spiderman 1, is the best of the films in my opinion. It just seems that 3 stars is handed out for films that are watchable, and that far too many films seem to fall into this category, and like Empire says, "the first was one of the most purely enjoyable comic book movies in ages", surely that warrants an extra star. Even the dross that was Superman Returns got 5 stars, and it was crap.

Typical Empire inconsistency, there seems to be a divide between the Empire website and the Empire magazine (i.e. hyping up previous films like they are modern classics in news stories but only giving them 3 stars in the actual magazine), it's the same with Total Film. . . .

IMO Empire's rating system is attrocious for a start. How can you use a simple "out of 5 stars" rating system for movies, they would be better off changing it to a "out of 10 type rating" and also get better people to do the reviews. I have to admit that 7 times out of ten (no pun intended) I agree with Empire's reviews BUT I am a fervent disciple of the "judge for yourself" church. That said, I agree with what people have been saying, Superman Returns should never have had that full five stars, it was far away from being a perfect film, was decent , watchable but far from perfect.

I think reviewing as a medium is hindered greatly by scores. 5 is too low a number to accurately convey somethings true worth, and a lot of people look solely at the score to save time reading the damn article. Not all reviews are perfect of course, just look at the review for Lion King on this site, worst review i've ever read, and i've read some of Paul Ross' reviews.

Ok, lets clear some stuff up. First off 3 stars is a fair review for Iron Man, even Jon Favreau admits its not a perfect film. For example had the final fight lived up to its full potential it would have been a 4 star film hands down! Second off making comic book movies to please comic book fans is, speaking as a comic book fan, impossible.While i will gladly defend both Hulk and Iron Man as movies Marvel are a comics company and were never going to achieve a 4-5 star movie first time around that pleases both comic book and movie fans. If Marvel had made a proper, 100% faithful to the comics Iron Man movie we would not all be here talking about a sequal. I have huge issues with any 'comic book movie' that has been made by an outside company, ie 20th century fox did the x-men plus fantastic 4 etc as they never seem to be able to balance out making a movie that is both a good movie and 100% faithful to its source. Spiderman 1-3 are some of the most insulting movies to comic book fans as they totally failed to capture Spiderman! where was the humour?the wise cracking wall crawler?why was MJ such a pathetic whimp of a character and dont even start me on the fact that that fool Maguire couldnt keep his mask on when in the comics Spidy's identity was one of the closest secrets he kept!two films in and the whole world should have known who was under that mask! Ok the point im making is the reason empire are so understandably excited about Iron Man 2 is that Iron Man was the first step in making a film that pleases both sets of fans.Its a great movie that captures the original story and characters ALMOST perfectly!

I think reviewing as a medium is hindered greatly by scores. 5 is too low a number to accurately convey somethings true worth, and a lot of people look solely at the score to save time reading the damn article. Not all reviews are perfect of course, just look at the review for Lion King on this site, worst review i've ever read, and i've read some of Paul Ross' reviews.

I think reviewing as a medium is hindered greatly by scores. 5 is too low a number to accurately convey somethings true worth, and a lot of people look solely at the score to save time reading the damn article. Not all reviews are perfect of course, just look at the review for Lion King on this site, worst review i've ever read, and i've read some of Paul Ross' reviews.

hate to break it to you Snake-Eyes but had you read the above article you would have noticed the following: "Turns out, though, that Rourke’s Whiplash will incorporate elements of the Crimson Dynamo’s backstory and appearance, along with elements of the comic book Whiplash" obviously one of the elements their borrowing from Crimson Dynamo is the fact that he is Russian. Helps to read the article mate

As for the whole "3 star controversy" around Iron Man... what's the problem? Last I checked, 3 stars means "Good". I'd personally have given it 4 stars, but Empire's review and score was still positive at the time, and they clearly liked the film, and still do. Perhaps the film has aged well in their eyes, prompting them to be even more favourable in their discussion of the film than they were a year ago? Total Film (who also, I think, gave the film 3 stars) upped their score to 4 stars in a recent retrospective feature. I wouldn't be surprised to see Empire do the same, should they review the film again.

I like the idea of Mickey Rouke as Whiplash, I loved Robert Downet Jr as Iron Man, but I can't get on board with the idea of Samuel L Jackson playing Nick Fury. I just think someone like Ray Liotta, or Kurt Russell would suit the part more.

Inject some much needed villainy in a franchise which lacked it first time round! Don't get me wrong, I thought Iron Man was one of Marvel's best efforts but Iron Monger was not a particularly satisfying villain. Which is probably the point, as the first film was more concerned with establishing Tony Stark's character. Let's just hope Favreau will grace us with a good villain this time round as well as a cool hero!